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<metadesc>Expert , full book reviews & recommendations from most walks of literary life; fiction, non-fiction, children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>

Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books reviews and recommendations Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the libraryWith author interviews, the charity shop features and the bookshoptop tens. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times thereYou'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent sure to us by publishers and we promise to tell find something you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something want to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] pagehere.Dig in!

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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews ]] at TheBookbag.

==Reviews of the The Best New Books==

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> '''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].

|isbnauthor=178089922XSylvie Cathrall|title=Invisible Girl|author=Lisa JewellA Letter to the Luminous Deep

|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=''When you wear There are few greater joys than a hood, you're invisible.'' Saffyre Maddox is seventeen-years-old and beautiful. By her own admission, she's a bit of a boffin, doing and enjoying maths, physics and biology at A level. Life hasn't been easy for her: most people who have been close to her have died and she's now living with her Uncle Aaron in an eighth-floor flat. Something ''really, really bad happened'' book which lives up to her when she was ten and she self-harmed for a long timecompelling premise. Aaron organised psychological help and for three years Roan Fours was her therapist. He gently unpeeled the layers And this is one of her psyche, but somehow managed to miss that 'something really, really bad'. When the therapy ended Saffyre felt cast adrift, but she retained an interest in Roanthem.|isbn= 0356522776

|isbn=18389510670008517061|title=The Nothing ManDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Catherine Ryan HowardStig Abell|rating=54|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When we first meet Jim DoyleFormer Metropolitan Police detective, he's about to get a shockJake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. He's security at There’s perhaps a supermarket little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and he's watching her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a woman who is acting suspiciously. She has a book tucked under her arm lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and he wonders if she's planning relaxing life to pay for it. Suddenly it drops move in with Livia or does Livia move to the floor with the spine splayed upwards. ''Nothing Man'' by Eve Black, Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the title. Why is Jim shockedfuture she wants for herself and her daughter? Well, Jim was - ''is'' - For the moment they’re enjoying life in the Nothing Man who, until eighteen years ago raped present and killed. The author of putting the future on the book was twelve years old when Jim raped her mother, and then killed her, her father and her seven-year-old sister, Annaback burner.

|authorisbn=Christina Hammonds Reed1786482126|title=The Black KidsJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths

|genre=Teens Crime|summary=Christina Hammonds ReedBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 's debut novel is set against luxury' apartments - when they discovered the backdrop bones of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a reaction to the absolution of four police officers for beating child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a black manritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Rodney KingDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, nearly to death. Told from the perspective of Ashley Bennettbut Nelson doesn't, the novel follows her evolution from that she is pregnant with his child as a silent bystander when confronted with matters result of racethe one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to a woman finding her voice and embracing her heritagesudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=1471188191

|isbn=07515674260008551324|title=The Wicked SisterDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Karen DionneNeil Lancaster

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When we first meet Rachel Cunningham sheIt's an inpatient at unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the Newberry Regional Mental Health Center other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in Michiganprison and he's Upper Peninsulaprepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. SheNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's twentyeven prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded -six make certain that DS Max Craigie and has been there for fifteen anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years, convinced that she accidentally killed her mother when she was elevensince nine-yearsyear-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and that her father then took the gun and killed himselfinvestigation ground to a halt. Her sisterNow, Dianaher mother, just twenty-years-oldHelena, was left at the family home, a lodge and her father are dead in the Upper Peninsula wildernesstheir bed. RachelInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's very bright and although she's a voluntary patient at something about the positioning of the Mental Health Center she remains there, feeling bodies that this makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is what she deservesnow a complex double murder. PerhapsKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, though, the circumstances Una Burt) are not as she remembersless convinced.

|isbn=15069094420571379877|title=The Worst Dogs: A Progressive Murder-MysteryKellerby Code|author=Matthew de Lacey DavidsonJonny Sweet|rating=43.5

|summary=''The greatest hatredEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, like the greatest virtue Robert and the worst dogs, is silentStanza. Robert's a theatre director. He' The title of this enjoyable crime procedurals also self-obsessed, demanding, is from German romantic writer Jean Paulhandsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. But who are the worst dogs Edward has been in de Lacey Davidsonlove with Stanza since their university days - and he's latest novel and for whom is the hatred? This mystery will last all the way drunkenly confided how he feels to the very last and carefully plotted pages but you will be thinking about unwarranted hatred all the way throughRobert. It sounds uncomfortable - Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but it isnhe'ts not like most men: it's honestEdward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.

|author=Rob BakerJo Callaghan|title=Toubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in AfricaLeave No Trace

|genre=TravelCrime|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It''"Go to Malis their first live case together," they saidhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. "The music But when there is amazinga second body found crucified a few days later," they said. "And you get ten hours Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of sunshine every dayunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project." So I did.'' Rob Baker is an ethnomusicologist. ''A what?'' I hear you cry. Well, an ethnomusicologist studies music Will they be able to solve the case in relation to culturetime, so rather like a folklorist studies or will Kat find herself taken off the oral case and written story traditions relating to , potentially, out of a culture.career?|isbn=B089CSNFT7139851120X

|authorisbn=James Patterson1399613073|title=Hawk: A Maximum Ride NovelMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=TeensThrillers|summary=Hawk has been waiting Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the same street corner, every first day, of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for yearsa quarter of a century. She Olivia is waiting for her parents ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to come be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and get hera trauma doctor. They left her there when Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she was just tiny, becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and although sheit's almost certain that they are never coming back for her, she continues going to head back there each day, just end in casetragedy. Hawk isnWe don't your ordinary street urchin though..know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences.she has wings, and can fly! Since she was abandoned she's been living with a group of other children, all with interesting characteristics of their own and together they've made their own family. But now the city is seemingly even more troubled than usual, Twenty-five years later there's a mysterious child-killer who has been brought to the prison next door to where will be an eerily similar event that will impact the children live, and then one day Hawk comes home to find her family has been taken awaythree friends. Where have they been takenThis time, and can Hawk rescue them before it's too late?|isbn=1529120004their teenage children who are involved.

|isbn=17857656980241636604|title=Shed No TearsThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Caz FrearGary Stevenson

|summary=In November 2012 Christopher Masters, the man who would become known as It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the roommate killerEnglish country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, strangled three women in a fortnightCarole. When he was arrested he admitted Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the killingsleast. A fourth death Arthur was attributed to him - that of Holly Kemp - and on occasions, Masters admitted the reason why Freya had not been back to the killingvillage: Arthur, then he denied it - then admitted itshe feels, then denied itlet her down badly. He played with the policeEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, but there was sufficient evidence on the first three killings she has not felt able to put him away for a long time and be near the CPS were not convinced about man or pursue the Holly Kemp caseprofession she loved. There was no body After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and once Masters married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered in prison, no hope of progressing the case further) and Freya and James have now divorced.

|isbn=1473682401AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Turning Tide (Dandy Gilver)All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Catriona McPhersonBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Crime (Historical)Science Fiction|summary=Those who were with us at ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the end shape of [[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|A Step So Grave]] will remember that Donald was engaged things to Mallory Dunnochcome. They'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're now married and Mallory is having twinseighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. When they arrive no one can doubt I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the charms feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brother, Edward Hugh Lachlan Gilverit is - frankly - quite frightening. There are two drawbacks: theyOf course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I're noisy and m reading someone who knows what they're staying with Dandy talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and Hughwho could deliver information in a way I could understand.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sunny Singh|title=Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers |summary=The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Dandy Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and her detective partner, Alec OsborneAbhi, had not taken up the chance hotel manager. As Abhi continues to look into try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a problem at the Cramond ferry when it was offered bond with Sam who refuses to them twice beforebe cowed by events, but suddenly the possibility of being and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the house at Gilverton seems irresistibleterrorists.|isbn=086154742X

|isbn=B07WWSCGVS1529153298|title=The Lies You ToldList of Suspicious Things|author=Harriet TyceJennie Godfrey

|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Year six student Robin Spence isnIt't happy about having to start a new schools 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) She's left the school she loved in New York and now shenot what's worrying Miv's going to Ashams in North Londonfamily, though. It's very upmarket; places are rare as hens' teeth and as the pupils Women have all been there disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'foreverdisappeared'doesn', they have their established groupst sound quite so frightening. RobinMiv's upset because she's going overheard that her father wants to be an outsidermove the family 'Down South'. And why When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is this happening? Wella frightening, foreign place, over a matter of a few days her parents' marriage fell apartbest avoided. Andrew Spence is staying in New York - he works for a securities firm - and For Miv, the move would mean leaving her motherbest friend, Sadie RoperSharon, has come back and she'll do anything to London to pick up her practice as a criminal barristerprevent that. ThatShe's easier said than done when younot worried about the dangers or that her Mum've been out of the market place s stopped talking - and the country - for more than ten yearsto anyone.

|isbn=14087124151398524085|title=Cry BabyHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Mark BillinghamNicci French|rating=4.5

|summary=ItCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's June 1996 fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and football's European Championships her daughter, Etty. are about to start in Londonall worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. DS Tom Thorne is having a nightmare Shortly afterwards, Etty and itGreg, find the body of Greg's one he has regularlyfather, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It relates was an easy assumption for the police to a case from ten years earlier when he ''knew'' make that a man was guilty, but didn't take any action until the man's wife and three children Duncan had been murdered Charlie and the man had killed himself. Cat Coyne and Maria Ashton are with their sons Kieron and Josh. Itthen committed suicide when he couldn's a happy combination in that the boys are devoted to each other and - despite differences in the where and how they live - t stand the women are best friendsguilt. The boys Salter children are seven-year-old and not convinced but there's little else they play can do but get on the swings in the park with their lives and then dash off to play hide and seek in Highgate Wood. Josh was the one doing the hiding - but he returned tearfully to the women: Kieron never came to find him and now he can't find Kieronwonder about what really happened.

|isbn=B08CHJLNBS1035906708|title=Capturing EmiliaDiva|author=Brooke Adams|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in the heritage library next door. Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, to something a little deeper. Charles is more of a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads ''The Guardian''. They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of his mind? She's not his usual type at all: it's obvious to his friends. And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The relationship's obviously a non-starter, isn't it?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1504321383|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa PatemanDaisy Goodwin

|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=''You can't be happy We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and fulfilled on your ownonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. You are not complete until you find a manHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'. This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believemake it more manageable in the States. It wasn't unkind: it When she was simply the adults back in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her. It voice - she was reinforced by all those fairy tales where raised under the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued Nazi occupation by the handsome prince a mother who then marries mercilessly exploited her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.

|isbnauthor=1787301435Christopher Edge|title=Dark Waters|author=G R HallidayBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Twenty-two-year-old Annabelle Whittaker made her second mistake when she opted to drive down the private road Lucas and his friends are all booked in Glen Turrit. It was for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a long road through some breath-taking scenery and she could push place that has the car to its limits without fear nickname of being caught speeding'The Black Hole'. When the blond child stepped out in front All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of her she instinctively jerked the steering wheel exciting films, and hit a tree. many, many snacks! When she came round after However, as the accident she movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't work out where she was, but it obviously wasn't a conventional hospitaleven imagine. She'd made her first mistake some time agoBut as they lurch from one film genre to the next, although can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the realisation wouldn't be obvious cinema, and to her for a long time. She'd made it when she chose to have her father buy her a pale blue BMW M4.their real lives?|isbn=1839942738

|author=Suzanne CollinsRachel Greenlaw|title=The Ballad of Songbirds Compass and SnakesBlade|rating=43.5

|summary= Coriolanus Snow is refined, charming, and one of ''I can hear the only surviving members song of the affluent Snow familysea. But their world was destroyed by The call of the war. Their riches gonedeep, his parents dead - and yet the facade must be maintainedanswering beat in my heart. As the 10th Hunger Games begins'' Rosevear, Coriolanus a remote and other students of partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the Academy become rocks and plundering the first Mentors wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the tributes in seven who swim out to survey the gamesruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. This is his chance to prove himself But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the world island's leader and secure his place in the Capitol for goodMira's father. But when he is assigned Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a tribute bargain with no hope - a girl from District 12 - wreck survivor who is as charming as he thinks all chances of winning (both for her is secretive and for him) are gone. But Lucy Gray Baird proves herself with only coordinates to be a spark in his worldguide her, she sets off in search of a way he could never have imaginedfamily secret that lies buried deep in the sea. As the Games commenceWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, Lucy Gray fights for as her journey takes her life in from the watched streets of foreign islands to the arena - but behind heart of the scenessmuggler's territory, in Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the sly, complex future of her home and strangely dangerous world of the Capitol, Coriolanus is fighting for his life tooones she holds most dear. Will she survive the Games? Will he? And what happens then?|isbn=07023001790008664730

|author=Sakinu AhronglongJames Sherwood Metts|title=Hunter SchoolPlanet Storyland

|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary= The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is Things have been a work of fictionbit sticky for the Earthlings. ThatAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they's possibly misleadingre paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is Just as the blurb goes on they were beginning to get used to say ''recollections, folklore all this technological change and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a childstarting to think of other, as an adolescentnew ways to spend time, as along came an adult are real awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and true. But memory is a fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling along with it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people should, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=19997912821736128426

|author=Kat EllisMatthew Tree|title=Harrow LakeWe'll Never Know

|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=When we first meet 17-year-old Lola, daughter Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to legendary horror movie director Nolan Nox, she is saying goodbye to New York City - by sneaking out and stealing be different from its residents. But when she is found by her his father's assistant and forced to come home, she arrives to find an unlocked door, a trail drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of blood, and her father dying in his study. And so, while he recovers, she is sent off to live with her grandmother in Harrow Lake, the small 1920s town in Indiana that served as the location for the film that made her parents famous. But something about this place isn't right. There's a darkness inside the people here. Secrets about her mother artistic passions all failed miserably and dark tales who had endless crises of the town's cannibal monster 'Mister Jitters' fill every corner, and disturbing happenings plague Lolaself confidence. But with every passing hour, secrets long buried come painfully So Tim applied himself to light and she begins to think that these stories may not be stories at allhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and something very real and sinister lurks in Harrow Lakeset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=0241397049B0CVFXPGP8

|author= Helly ActonA G Slatter|title= The ShelfBriar Book of the Dead|rating= 45|genre= Women's FictionFantasy|summary= When we meet Amy, she'' There's in a relationship with Jamiepart of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while. You can't really call it ' Within a partnershipremote mountain pass, because things tend to get done on his termsfar away from the world, but shelies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's sticking around because , a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she hopes has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she can change himwas young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. AhWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, yesthe town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. Haven't we all been there? Things are looking up when he tells As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to pack for communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a surprise tripmaelstrom of chaos. Could this be it? Is he ''finally'' going Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to get down on one knee? Was the work (trust and determine what to do as the wait) worth it?Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=18387708791803364548

|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Daria Yudina1529900360|title= This Book Wants to Make You Laugh (Living Book)The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating= 4|genre= For SharingCrime|summary=This Living Book is It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on a missiondifficult cases. What His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn's t need the mission? To make you laugh! I can't think help of many better missions than thata psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, can you? LetDelaware's see how it doespartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. .... well, it opens up with Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a terrible jokeremote property in Bel Air. A groany joke, He was the heir to an eye-roll joke. The joke isn't very funny but it Italian shoe empire and she is funny married to see how enthusiastic an extremely rich man and how generously this book wants to make you laugh - it''Oh, I'm terrible at jokess not the Italian. Some books are so good at But which of them. I always wanted to help someone laugh.'' |isbn= 194812453Xwas the primary target?

|isbn=15294022711529395224|title=Murder on Letting the Moorland (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire Mysteries)Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Helen CoxSion Rowlands

|summary=DI Malcolm Halloran and Kitt HartleyDCI Domenic Jejeune's relationship is developing nicely: they're even into close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a spot of bandage nowshort holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, although the details are (mercifully) scantGuy Trueman. After Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a night of passion Halloran is called away in the early hours of the morning. There's been man armed with a murder in Irendale, where Halloran used to live knife - and where his wife, Kamala, was strangled five years agohe killed a Ghurka. There are sufficient details Initially, he faced a charge of the current murder manslaughter but evidence came to make Halloran suspect light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man who murdered his wife - and others - is in some way involved, despite being in prison. The DI heads off Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to speak to Jeremy Kerrhelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.

|author= Mark DawsonAlexander McCall Smith|title= The CleanerPerfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary= Ruthless The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and coldly competentoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, John Milton tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is one coming out of the British government's best assets – a contract killer break up with lethal instinctsa bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Now And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, after ten yearsbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, he wants outbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. But his job isn Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there't one you can just walk away from…s always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=178739462X1846976596

|authorisbn=Angela Mack0811771741|title=I Am UnworthyInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman

|genre=TeensCrafts|summary= Isabel is determined Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to start freshblankets. Start again. Sixth form Some will be differentquick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. Her tormentor doesn The projects are divided by the time they't go ll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to Gilleford Secondary School anymoretwenty hours and more than twenty hours. She can escape All the hurtprojects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the fearthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, and Benny is the very last person she becameto deserve all this bad luck. Josh He is determined a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to keep his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is goingto take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, even through the rageif he, the painBenny, and using his fists Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{Frontpage|author=Adam Stower|title=Murray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers |summary=Murray is supposed to solve any problem or situation. But he has secrets that threaten be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to tear him sleep and eat and eat and sleep and , well, whatever takes his brothers apartfancy next of the two. When Josh and Isabel But he's a bad magician's worlds collidecat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, can they make their relationship work? Can and the catflap they both finally use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be happy? Or will Joshhonest, but he's time run out?turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=B089FL7H4H0008561249

|authorisbn=Laura Imai MessinaB0C47LV1PC|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=54

|summary= In the northeast of Japan, in Inwate Prefecture Can you make a man installed a telephone box in his garden. ''Inside there Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is an old black, telephone, disconnectedthe question if you did, would it land? The catch is that carries voices into the windanswer for both could well be.... no. ''Fragility'' It is a real placeset as the city of Portland, a necessary placeOregon, and I am pleased cautiously begins to see the IMPORTANT NOTE that emerge from the author attaches to her story, that restrictions imposed during the place is not a tourist destination, it is a sacred place, a place that must be left to those who really need it.|isbn=178658039Xcovid pandemic

|isbn=B0859115X51529431735|title=Lies to Tell (DI Clare Mackay)The Winter Visitor|author=Marion ToddJames Henry

|summary=When we meet up with DI Clare Mackay again sheIt's at Daisy Cottage February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the outskirts of St Andrews with her English Bull Terrier, BenjyCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. SheThe return has come about because he's just had a postcard letter from Geoffrey Dark and he's in Provincetownhis ex-wife, Cape Cod. He wishes saying that she was there, but Clare's struggling to think of what he ''actually'' is to her now. Is he her boyfriend? Her ex-boyfriend? She can't work it out ill and thinks that Geoffrey probably canhasn't eitherlong to live. WorkIt's about hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to get very busy his underwear and she can't work out why DCI Alastair Gibson has cancelled sent to a watery grave in the boot of a meeting she'd arranged without discussing it with her firststolen Ford Sierra. They're off somewhere top secret.Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?

|isbnauthor=1780899858Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=To Tell You the Truth|author=Gilly MacmillanThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=When Lucy Bewley was nine-years-old she crept out of Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the house on wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the night of evening a helper at the summer solstice to watch dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the pagan celebrations in Stoke Woodsfamily. Her four-year-old brotherA few short years ago, TeddyEli's parents were both lost to the titular race, would a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have woken to navigate the house if she hadn't taken him with her. But world in the early hours company of the morning, Lucy returned home without Teddy, hoping that he would have got home before hera magical beast. He hadn't and no one This has seen him since. Lucy's story was crucial made the race anathema to the police investigationpair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, but it keeps subtly changing. Lucy Eli knows his only hope is being advised by her imaginary friendto dare to enter what he most hates, Eliza Grey and Eliza says that there are certain things which Lucy must not tell with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the policeonly thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231